Jazz Great Bill Holman at MTSU February 23rd

Jazz great Bill Holman coming to MTSU on Saturday night, February 23rd, at 7:30PM.

Multi-Grammy-winning jazz arranger/composer Bill Holman will join the MTSU Jazz Ensemble I and the MTSU Singers on Saturday, February 23rd, for the latest concert in the 2012-13 MTSU Jazz Artist Series.

The 7:30 p.m. performance in Hinton Music Hall, located inside the Wright Music Building on the MTSU campus, will be the culmination of the daylong MTSU Jazzfest.

Jazzfest offers both junior high and high school students an individual focus on the jazz style and the art of jazz improvisation.

Tickets for the Feb. 23 concert are $15 for the general public and can be reserved by calling 615-898-2724 or emailing james.simmons@mtsu.edu. Admission is free for MTSU students, faculty and staff with valid IDs. Discounts for area band students and educators are also available.

"A master class with one of our jazz faculty members will also be a feature of the day's activities for students,” said Jamey Simmons, director of jazz studies at MTSU. “The beauty of this format is that the whole ensemble need not attend but are in fact welcome at the same time. Our vocal jazz (training) component, with a performance by the MTSU Singers, is new this year.”

Holman, who has been nominated for the Grammy Award 14 times and has won three Grammys, has roots as a tenor saxophonist, composer and writer extending back as far as 1949 in ensembles with such artists as Ike Carpenter, Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne, Shorty Rogers and Mel Lewis.

He has consistently been voted "Best Arranger" in readers' and critics' polls and has received many awards in recognition of his contributions to jazz. The Smithsonian Institution established the Bill Holman Collection of scores and memorabilia in 2000, and in 2010, the National Endowment for the Arts presented Holman with the NEA Jazz Masters Award — the nation's highest honor in jazz — in recognition of a lifetime of extraordinary achievement.

Among the artists for whom Holman has provided arrangements over the years are Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Michael Bublé, Natalie Cole, Maynard Ferguson, Woody Herman, Peggy Lee and many more.

His Grammy wins came in 1987 for Best Instrumental Arrangement for Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Orchestra's "Take the A Train"; in 1995 for Best Instrumental Composition for "A View from the Side" for the Bill Holman Band; and in 1997 for Best Instrumental Arrangement for Thelonious Monk's "Straight, No Chaser" on the Bill Holman Band's album "Brilliant Corners."

Holman’s visit is sponsored in part by the Office of New Student and Family Programs and the MTSU Distinguished Lecture Fund.